A Samhain Sortie

"Halloween is fast approaching, but there are still spider webs to be spun and pumpkins to be carved if it is to be truly ghoulish! Help these fiendish faeries scare up the most bloodcurling Halloween yet! ★Trick or Treat!★"

- Game Description

A Samhain Sortie is a special Halloween "ranked" event for Mobius Final Fantasy, featuring a challenge against the Jack O' Tender and the Halloween Cactuar for rewards.

While this is a special Holiday event, the region plays like a typical Ranked Event, but without the Ranked tracking or rewards. There is only a single path of progressively harder battles, with standard area rewards.

Event Details

 * Event Type: Special Holiday Celebration
 * First instance: October 31 - November 10, 2019.

How to Participate
Go to A Samhain Sortie region spot on the Act 2 World Map.

Story
The Echoes are having a meeting. There's a problem -- one of the local mountains has too many fiends on it to put up Halloween decorations! It's a disaster... but the Halloween Echo has a solution! With a portentous "Trick or Treat!" she changes into the Plague Doctor Echo, and introduces the hero! A man who strikes fear in his enemies, and loves doing menial monster-slaying!

Wol steps up and points out he hasn't said yes yet. Such happy volunteering sounds a lot like another Echo he knows... er, knew. Might this be the Echo he remembers? The Plague Echo points out they're really all the same, so there's no way to tell.

Okay then, what if Wol doesn't help? Then Halloween is cancelled... and the tricks and treats shift to Christmas and New Year's celebrations. How terrible. Very well, there's slaughtering to be done.

Gameplay
Play in this area works through a single chain of levels, from the beginning Halloween Special area up to the top Pumpkarok area. As you work your way up the path, the battles at each level will get progressively harder.

Each area features three skirmishes.
 * The first battle is a trick!
 * The Jack O' Tender summons a set of common fodder in that area's element.


 * The second battle is a treat!
 * The Jack O' Tender summons spirits that take your elemental orbs, and give you boons in return.
 * If you don't have any orbs to offer, then bad things happen. (not really. You still get boons.)


 * The third is always a set of Halloween Cactuars.

The Cactuars get an interesting new mechanic. Four normal Cactuars appear, along with a much tougher "costumed" one in the center. At the start of battle, the five Cactuars fuse together into a Halloween Gigantuar! If left in this state, it will eventually cast an extremely damaging Ultimate attack. (In the Phantasmic Loop, this is an instant kill.) If you break it, it will separate back into its component Cactuars on its next post-break action.

But... the health bar for the individual Cactuars reflects the health bar of the Gigantuar before it splits. So any damage that you can inflict on the Gigantuar will give you an easier time killing the individual Cactuars.

Similarly, when the Cactuars merge again, the Gigantuar gets the average of the surviving Cactuars.
 * If you concentrate on one Cactuar at a time, then the average across the living ones stays high, keeping the Gigantuar high. Beware!
 * If you kill any of the outlying Cactuars, then the center (costumed) one will resurrect them at full health!

Event Map
"Halloween descends upon Palamecia for the first time, with all manner of foul fiends ready to give you the what-for. So treat yourself to all manner of trickery and see how far you can climb up the tower!"

- Map Description

The region has one path upwards, leading up to the top at the 10th "Pumpkarok" level. You cannot return to previous areas once they've been beaten.

After completing the Pumpkarok area, you enter the "Phantasmic Coil" areas. This is a set of 5 areas that repeat in an infinite loop, also with an increasing difficulty with each area finished. On these levels, there is no fifth Rental Card allowed, and if you lose, you cannot use s to continue. A Prize of x5 is handed out for each loop of 5 completed.

There are 16 total areas, including the Phantasmic Coil and the Starting area. There are 11 treasure chests. Since the treasure chest in the Phantasmic Coil regenerates on each pass, the region technically cannot be Completed.

Phantasmic Coil
The five levels after Pumpkarok are set in an infinite loop, with a prize on the completion of the fifth area on each loop. Players cannot use s to continue the battle if they lose, and the fifth "rental" card is not available.

This event is NOT a Ranked Tower battle, so there are no rewards for continuing on the Phantasmic Loop besides the s. Keep going for your own enjoyment.

No Ranked rewards
This event was originally offered as a Ranked Event in Japan over Halloween 2018. With the transition to Global, this event coincides with The Transient Sorceress event (part of the FFVIII Collaboration event), so this is being handled as an extra event without the Ranked Rewards or tracking.

Notable Enemies
Halloween Cactuars -- regular cactuars dressed up with headwear from specific jobs
 * Fire -- wearing the Fauviste's cat-ears
 * Water -- wearing the Vana'diel Geomancer's Sandogasa
 * Wind -- wearing the Eorzean Bard's Choral Chapeau
 * Light -- wearing the Nachtflug's Corona Horn
 * Dark -- wearing the Nightwalker's Imp Horns

Jack O' Tender -- no battles. Just summons other fiends and escapes. Treat fiends! These take your existing skill seeds, and offer boons in exchange.
 * Floating Pumpkin
 * Reaper Tonberry
 * Boogle
 * Cait-o-Lantern

Reference
The region plays a song that includes dialog from the Japanese voice actors for Echo and Wol.


 * News Page announcement
 * (no Event megathread posted on Reddit)
 * Drama Cutscenes with Jp VA from RedZero Kaiser on YouTube.
 * Drama Cutscenes with Eng VA from Dark Cloud on YouTube.